Wednesday, 28 January 2015

Game 49: Elvira - Hell’s kitchen

Jake Spenser Journal Entry #4 "There is no way out.
And now Elvira wants me to throw the cook away from the kitchen. If
it wasn’t for her… personality I would quit. If I could leave the
castle also. In any case, my ghost busting skills were useful when I
dealt with the vampire in the second floor. They didn’t help with
the multiple skeletons I had to fight in the dungeon but that’s
where my trusty sword came through. Man, this castle is amazing, they
even have their own torture chamber. If only I could put the cook in
the iron lady..."

Previously on The Adventure Gamer...

When we left the last post we were at the entrance to the main keep.
Elvira came running to say something about a lard bucket, which we
should probably check... but the encounter with her reminded me that
I am a man of a single woman. I had to do what any decent human being
would do: break my affair’s heart. Literally. With a stake from the
sitting room and the new sledgehammer. Strange use for a sledgehammer
but when the need arises…

She didn’t take it too kindly

Searching the room I could only find some bolts and vampire dust left
by the previous tenant. My last girlfriend didn’t leave me too much
either, so I’m used to it by now. Time to check the mysterious
danger that made Elvira run away from the kitchen. I went down
trembling, expecting the unexpected, the horror, the fear, the cook…
wait… the cook? Yep, that’s basically the charming lady that made
Elvira turn tail. She was even making a stew. Poor sweet old woman.

She was just reading this book titled “How to cook for humans”

I left the good woman to herself and decided that it was time to
explore the dungeons. I was hesitant to go back, especially now that
Elvira was hiding somewhere unknown and was not available to save me.
I left everything in the hallway next to the kitchen stairs and went
to pay a visit to the castle dungeons.

Entering the dungeons changes the music again. If the keep and the
courtyard are kind of adventurous and the garden is calm, this one is
tense, even without much to worry about. The dungeons are a 10x10
rectangle with many rooms on both sides of the hall. Or maybe I
should say room, because the image used is always the same. There are
four items in each room: a wooden stool, a wooden bed, a wooden shelf
and a sawdust covered floor. In each room you have to click on all
four of them, because there can be either a spider, a centipede, an
earwig or a beetle which is not visible in the graphic window. It
gets tedious quite fast.

If you say so

To make things more interesting, while exploring the dungeons you
have to pay attention to two things. First, there are spiderwebs all
around the place that you can pick up. And, as was the case in the
main keep, any door can be guarded by an enemy, waiting for you to
open the door or walk into the the hall. In the dungeons we have to
fight the nasty skeleton soldiers, which are exactly like regular
soldiers but with a little more heath. Exactly in this case means
that they even shout when hit like regular soldiers, which begs the
question of where is that sound producer that is inserting all those
Wilhelmscreams.
The only exception is an orange guy guarding the torture room. I
marked him as the “Orange Bastard” in the map, so you can see it
is not a simple enemy. I even had to take two healing spells. Maybe I
am bad at this combat thingy.

He hurts so much that he can wound my eyes just by seeing his clothes

The torture chamber is a welcome variation after so many identical
rooms. It’s not like it brings a lot of color to the dungeon, but I
find the crimson hue of blood soothing at this point, especially when
it’s not mine. There are only three items in the room: First, a bag
of salt, described as “A bag of sodium chloride. Useful for the
avoidance of decapitation”. I don’t have the slightest idea what
that is about, but I think the cook can surely add some salt to her
stew. There is also a pair of tongs, and something tells me I should
leave alone for now. And finally an iron ring loosely fastened to the
floor.

Bah, amateurs! Nobody expects the spanish inquisition’s tooling in every torture chamber, but this one is severely lacking some torture power

This is one of those puzzles that are more difficult because of the
interface. You see, the iron ring can be brought to the inventory,
revealing a skeleton, truly dead, with another golden key, “Cuartus”
(fourth). The problem is that you can get a description of the iron
ring by double clicking on it, but it does not appear in the Room
inventory nor any of the verbs lightens. By the game logic, that
would mean that you can not do anything with it, but you can actually
drag it to the inventory to remove it from the screen revealing all
the items. I think it is a little unfair.

By the way, see that little R? These close-ups can be closed by clicking it

In any case, I took the key and the skeleton. Examining the skeleton
reveals that those are “the bones of a soul, tortured eternally,
seeking a resting place of everlasting peace”, which may or may not
have something to do with taking those tongs, but that probably
should be left for later. Now it is time to go back to sunlight and
learn a little about cooking.

Apparently, she can’t cope with salt

Everyone's a critic nowadays!! The cook was so offended by our
suggestion of using salt that she left in a hurry. More specifically,
she dissolved in a hurry. The moment she disappeared, Elvira came
running to recover her precious kitchen, ready to do one of the two
things she does in this game: cooking spells. But you will have to
wait for the next post to learn about that.

Me! Me! Me! I’m a strong big boy!!

DUNGEON MAP:

DEATH BONUS ROUND (TOTAL DEATHS: 6):

Oh no!! The title of the book was “How to cook forty humans”!! AHHHh!!

Don’t play with his tongs...

Session Time: 0 hours 55 minutes

Total Time: 2 hours 20 minutes

Note Regarding Spoilers and Companion Assist Points: There’s
a set of rules regarding spoilers and companion assist points. Please
read it here before making any comments that could be considered a
spoiler in any way. The short of it is that no points will be given
for hints or spoilers given in advance of me requiring one.
Please...try not to spoil any part of the game for me...unless I
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assistance. In this instance, I've not made any requests for
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